Monthly Archives: October 2002

Well, it's always nice to wake up and find out that two of your servers are offline (the main BME box, as well as the eunuch.org box)… Working on that now… As soon as that's dealt with, back to work on the scrapbook.

Update: There's broken switch or something at USinternet. They have a couple of idiots working on it now, as far as I can tell they assigned the stupidest people they could find.

Update: It seems to be fixed, and last night's scrapbook email is coming in.

Other than that this morning I had to delete a user who decided to use IAM to broadcast pictures of himself posing in punk regalia in front of his confederate and nazi flags. Why would a person like that add themselves here? Is it not incredibly clear that bigotry isn't tolerated here?

You still think swastikas look cool The real nazis run your schools They're coaches, businessmen and cops In a real fourth reich you'll be the first to go

Nazi Punks Fuck Off Dead Kennedys

Found out as well that the guy who was deleted earlier this week for basically the same thing (the guy that just got accepted to be a cop) had been broadcasting out white power skinhead messages to people for some time here. Real nice…

OK, now… No offense, but is the “average American” (whatever that means) delusional? According to a Pew Research Center poll, 86% of Americans believe that Saddam either has nuclear weapons or is close to getting them (a claim which has been absolutely discredited over and over and over), and 66% believe he was in part behind the 9/11 attacks (which is flat out ludicrous, considering that al-Qaeda considers Saddam an enemy as well). As Eric Margolis points out, Iraq is a demolished nation of 22.3 million people, 17.7 million of whom are anti-Saddam Kurds and Shia Muslims… Only 4.6 million Sunnis even live in the country.

You're being lied to. You've been told that Saddam is as bad as Hitler. Now Bush is claiming that this is as dangerous a showdown as the Cuban Missile crisis — which is again a flat-out lie. During the Cuban missile crisis there were nuclear missiles a hundred miles off the US coast in Cuba, plus piles more on Russian nuclear subs. The world really almost did end. The main reason it didn't is because of Arkhipov, but that's another story (read it if you want). This war is about two main things: (a) corporate greed, and (b) Israel.

That said, if you really want to know who was really behind the 9/11 attacks (along with al-Qaeda), you need to seriously start asking WHY does the White House continually block independent investigation into 9/11? They've already been tried and convicted in the press of incompetence. The only thing that they COULD be hiding is the fact that they were behind the attacks. Look at the outcome? Who profited? When you answer that question — and it's very easy to answer — you'll have your culprits.

Let's start with the Halliburton Company, on account of its direct ties with the White House. It has a subsidiary called Kellogg Brown & Root, which provides mercenary services to the government of Cuba and Central Asian nations. These “private contractors” are making up more and more of the forces on both sides, and they are owned by mainstream companies like TRW, Northrop Grumman, and so on — Fortune 500 companies. You need to read this article — it is terrifying — truly messed up: America's For-Profit Secret Army (free registration required). When you're done reading that, feel free to read The Dinosaur War – To Protect Corporate Profits. It addresses among other things how there was never an 1886 Supreme Court Ruling giving corporations the rights of people (isn't it fucked up that a corporation has more rights than say, a dolphin?). The Supreme Court had ruled nothing of the sort… But I guess it's too late now?

Rachel says I'm crazy if I think I've only put in about 30 hours so far… according to her, I've put in every spare moment since moving out here into the scrapbook, and then a bunch before moving as well. So who knows. Any, I thought I'd throw up a few more sample pages as I work (note: these have not been edited yet and may well contain both typos and mis-labellings).

Remember, you have until about OCTOBER 31st to pre-order your book. After that it's softcovers only and availability isn't guaranteed! (And you don't have to have a credit card or PayPal account to order — you can mail in a money order — you'll be given that option on checkout).

Many thanks to Wizzer for sending me these pictures — he's friends with Nick Bennett, who was my roommate for a while in Philly. Anyway, turns out I'm in his portfolio, just incidentally. I was standing behind him watching him do a scalpelled madison on himself, and I guess whoever was taking the pictures (I'm guessing Haji) caught me in the mirror!

It's an excerpt from an essay I was throwing together about play piercing (and other things)… I'm not sure if it makes sense or not, it's just a “rough sketch” of what I'm trying to say. In the light that history casts on play piercing type acts, I think it's in the right realm…

I'm seeing play piercing submissions to BME more and more — that is, needles pierced through flesh, often by the person themselves, without leaving any jewelry in place behind it. It's very important that I first point out that these things are not being done in a self-abusive manner. There is little relation between play piercing and self-cutting related psychiatric illnesses. Play piercing on the whole is undertaken as an act of self awareness and self exploration. The end result is an individual far more in touch with both themselves — physically and spiritually — and the world around them.

At our core we are built on an instinct-driven foundation that for most people shakes in fear at the proposition of pain being inflicted upon it. We've proven over and over that we as a species are very good at inflicting pain on each other without really understanding it. So now we have to ask — what will a generation of young people that is in touch with pain (and not afraid of) turn into? How is a person who understands their body and the nature of its nervous structure different than a person who is ignorant to their own make-up?

Play piercing is an act of transcendence from the physical by indulging in the physical. Play piercing makes the statement that the body is a tool of the mind, or of the soul, or perhaps of the heart or even a tool of God, as ones personal philosophies dictate. The act of surrendering to the needle says to one's body, “Yes, tell me what you're feeling, fire up those nerves, but don't try and lie to me about it. I'm not an animal and I'm not a coward — I'm a human, and this is my decision.”

Oh, and so far the upload is going well — I'm at 10% so far (it's about 90 meg in size) — assuming that continues and the connectivity stays good on the dish, I should be able to unzip it on the server when I return.

So Rachel has been feeding me constantly… We've been using that Yves fake ground meat and making every meat dish that I liked, but without any blood'n'guts. For those that like meat, check out the photo on the bottom left — it was sent in for the scrapbook by SYL from his trip to a BBQ in Spain. At least at the Toronto BBQs, there's been a very high vegan/vegetarian contingent, but wow, if I ate meat, I think I'd be heading over to Pallma de Mallorca now.

And the photo on the bottom right where I look freaky skinny (about 175 pounds I think, that's not much for 6'2″) was sent in by Keith — it's me, him, and Blair at the Generator, a (now defunct?) club in Toronto that SMF played at.

Seriously, thank you so much to everyone who's sending in photos and pre-ordering the book. I'm working super-hard on it to make sure it's worth all the effort. And I'm glad people are going for the hardcover on the whole — I think that quality-wise, it's definitely the wise decision.